Greek word · G213

ἀλαζών

alazōn

braggart

Alazōn: a boaster or impostor who makes empty claims to wealth, wisdom, status or skill. Huperēphanos: 'showing oneself above' others, meaning haughty and disdainful. The two appear together in Romans 1:30 as well.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Greek New Testament. · Updated October 24, 2026

What it means

ἀλαζών, -όνος, ὁ, ἡ

(ἄλη, wandering) [in LXX: Job 28:8 (שַׁחַץ) Habakkuk 2:5 (יָהִיר), Proverbs 21:24 (לוּץ)* ;]

prop, a vagabond, hence, an impostor, a boaster: Romans 1:30, 2 Timothy 3:2.†

SYN.: ὐβριστής, ὑπερήφανος (see Tr., Syn., § xxix; Lft., Notes, 256) (AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 2 Timothy 3:2

Range of meaning: Alazōn: a boaster or impostor who makes empty claims to wealth, wisdom, status or skill. Huperēphanos: 'showing oneself above' others, meaning haughty and disdainful. The two appear together in Romans 1:30 as well.
Against the English: English versions differ: 'boastful, arrogant' (BSB, WEB, NASB) or 'boastful, proud' (KJV, NIV). These are adequate, but 'proud' can sound mild or even positive in modern English ('proud of my kids'). The Greek pair describes a show-off who pretends and a snob who looks down on others.
How it drifted: 'Proud' has grown softer in English and now often means healthy satisfaction. Huperēphanos always meant contempt for others.
Used elsewhere in the period: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 4.7) defines the alazōn as someone who claims qualities he does not have or exaggerates the ones he does. Theophrastus devotes one of his Characters to alazoneia: the man who boasts of money he does not have and friends in high places. Huperēphanos is the word in Proverbs 3:34 in the Greek Old Testament, 'God opposes the proud', which is quoted in James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5. The nineteenth-century scholar R. C. Trench, in his study of New Testament synonyms, distinguished the outward boasting of the alazōn from the inward haughtiness of the huperēphanos.

From the study of Romans 1:30

Range of meaning: Braggart, impostor, pretender: one who makes inflated claims about his wealth, connections, knowledge or abilities. The Greek ethical tradition treated him as a recognisable type: the quack, the fake expert, the name-dropper.
Against the English: 'Boastful' or 'boasters' is accurate as far as it goes. It can miss the element of falseness: the alazōn claims what is not true or not his.
Used elsewhere in the period: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.7, sets the alazōn (who overstates himself) against the eirōn (who understates himself), with the truthful person as the mean. Theophrastus, Characters 23, sketches 'the Boaster' who lies about his business deals and famous friends. The alazōn was a stock role in Greek comedy. LXX Wisdom 5:8 asks what good arrogance and 'boasting' (alazoneia) did the wicked. NT: 2 Tim 3:2; alazoneia in James 4:16 and 1 John 2:16.

Similar words

ἀλαζονεία alazoneia · boasting

Where it appears

Romans · 1

Romans 1:30 ἀλαζόνας, boastful,

slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.

Here: The boaster who claims more than he has or is: the windbag, the self-promoting fraud. It is a well-known stock character in Greek comedy and ethics. The emphasis is on empty, inflated claims, not simply on talking about oneself.

2 Timothy · 1

2 Timothy 3:2 ἀλαζόνες, boastful,

For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

Here: The braggart who claims more than he has or is: wealth, knowledge, connections. In Greek comedy and ethics he was a stock character, the swaggering impostor. Fitting for teachers who claim knowledge they lack (verse 7).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.